The Affordable Care Act has hit yet another roadblock as it nears implementations as the Obama administration has announced that the provision of the law that would cap the amount of money an insurer can charge an individual has been pushed back until 2015, according to Fox News.
Under the law an individual will not spend more than $6,350 a year on health care while a family will not spend more than $12,700. Now a one year grace period has been given to insurers offering them the opportunity to charge people an unlimited amount until 2015, according to the New York Times.
The delay was quietly announced on the web site of the Labor Department in February albeit buried in the middle of a 137 question long section of "frequently asked questions about Affordable Care Act implementation," reports the New York Times.
"The promise of out-of-pocket limits was one of the main reasons we supported health care reform," Theodore Thompson, a vice president of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, told the New York Times. "So we are disappointed that some plan will be allowed to have multiple out-of-pocket limits in 2014."
Molly Daniels, deputy president of the lobbying arm of the American Cancer Society, told the New York Times that they were very worried about the lack of a cap on out-of-pocket spending since some of the newest and most effective cancer medication can cost as much as $100,000 a year.
"If a prescription drug plan does not currently have a limit, then it will not have to have one in 2014," Daniels said. "Patients who require expensive drugs could continue to have enormous financial exposure, despite the clear intent of the law to limit a patient's total out-of-pocket exposure."
Republicans have been fighting to overturn the law since it was passed, House Republicans have voted to repeal the law or portions of it at least 40 times. This delay will be seen as more proof that the law should be repealed and that it is nowhere near prepared to be implemented in October.
"While I have grave concerns about this law under any circumstance, Americans should not be forced into the exchanges, and certainly not with these assurances," Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., wrote in a letter to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. "If you rush to go forward without adequate safeguards in place, any theft of personal information from constituents will be the result of your rush to implement a law to meet the agency's political needs and not the operational needs of the people it is supposed to serve."
